1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed to a room humidifier and more specifically to a room humidifier of the type adapted to be detachably supported from a standard wall register or placed on a floor register or upright console unit.
2. Prior Art
The broad idea of detachably supporting humidifiers from a hot air wall register is old and well known in the art. The simplest of these involve a simple open container of water which is detachably secured to the wall register by any suitable means so that the passage of hot air over the surface of the water will pick up some of the evaporated moisture. Other prior art devices went a step further and supported a fabric by some suitable means in the hot air path parallel to the face of the register with the lower end of the fabric disposed in the container of water. Such an arrangement however was generally unattractive and substantially impaired the flow of hot air from the register thereby decreasing the over-all efficiency of the heating system. Still other prior art devices utilize free standing artificial plants having wick-type means associated therewith which were placed in the container of water so that the humidifier resembled an artificial planter. However, the efficiency of such artificial flowers for assisting the transfer of moisture left much to be desired in the way of efficiency.
As opposed to the relatively open water containing type humidifiers, other prior art devices provided a substantially closed container which was adapted to fit over and completely cover the wall register. Although the rear surface of such containers was substantially open, the front surface consisted substantially of a plurality of closely spaced apart louvres which seriously impeded the flow of air through the humidifier. A plurality of sponge-like blocks were provided within the interior of the container to provide a capillary action for drawing water from a trough in the bottom of the container. However, the use of such sponge blocks further impeded the flow of air thereby greatly reducing the over-all efficiency of the heating system. An example of such a room humidifier is U.S. Pat. No. 3,227,064, granted to William S. Spangler on Jan. 4, 1966.
With respect to floor registers, various attempts have been made to provide humidifiers which would either be placed in the heating duct immediately below the floor register or which would rest on the upper surface of the floor register to allow the hot air to pass upwardly through the humidifier over a body of water contained within the humidifier. Such arrangements were generally complicated and inefficient and suffered from the same drawbacks as prior art wall registers.
In applicant's copending patent application Ser. No. 739,882, filed Nov. 8, 1976, now U.S. Pat. No. 4,226,174, a novel, efficient room humidifier was disclosed which was adapted to be mounted on a wall register. This room humidifier provided for improved flow of air over a plurality of water absorbing plates, a unique mounting system for said plates, and a water level indicator. The room humidifier is energy efficient since it does not require any source of power for the operation thereof.